Klan killing evokes bad memories in Louisiana

The Dixie Brotherhood
In this week's killing at a campsite, investigators found weapons, Confederate flags and six Klan robes, some emblazoned with patches reading "KKK LIFE MEMBER" or "KKK SECURITY Enforcement."

Authorities said the group's members called themselves the Dixie Brotherhood.

Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which investigates and collects information on hate groups, wasn't familiar with the group, although he said a KKK band known as the Dixie Rangers is believed to operate in Walker.

Walker is in Livingston Parish, west of Washington and St. Tammany and another one-time Klan hotbed. Seven Klan chapters of "various stripes" are in Louisiana, Potok said.

Potok said while hate groups have grown over the past several years — coinciding with discontent over illegal immigration — Klan factions are not solidly organized in Louisiana or nationwide. He said 34 different named Klan organizations with 155 chapters operate across the country with as many as 6,000 members — small numbers in his estimation.

"Really, it's a pathetic collection of losers and thugs," Potok said. "Even across the radical right most people look down their nose at the Klan these days."

'Wannabe Klansmen'
Felton Adams, a white, 60-year-old retired boat captain and lifelong Bogalusa resident who acknowledges the 1960s racial strife, believes the weekend ritual was an aberration carried out by "wannabe Klansmen."

"These people were just trying to be something they're not," said Adams.

On Wednesday in Bogalusa, public officials promised to fight any perception Louisiana is sliding on race relations.

"It's a setback, not only for my community, but for the whole area and it's something I'm not going to tolerate," said Bogalusa Mayor James "Mack" McGehee, who is white.

State Rep. Harold Ritchie, who represents the Washington Parish seat of Franklinton, said he has spoken with authorities and wants to be sure the Klan group is no bigger than the "eight crazies" who were arrested.

"I thought we were long past that," said Ritchie, who is white. "I hoped all I would have to do is read about this sort of thing in the history books."

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